Who Creates Nanda & how can I become more involved?

Flatline, BSN, RN · Jan 23, 2017

If you want to get involved in NANDA start here.

If you like rules and regulations then get involved in your local BON and ANA. To become appointed you generally need to become somewhat politically involved and work through your political party to gain an appointment.

If you want to really change healthcare look to industry. Industry heavily influences the standards of practice directly and indirectly.

Atl-Murse · Jan 23, 2017

If you really want to make changes, you should embrace politics. Why change one life at a time with back breaking work, if you could change millions of lives with a stroke of a pen

RNperdiem, RN · Jan 23, 2017

As you said, you are a novice and lack experience. Why not start by gaining a broad base of valuable nursing experience?

If you work at a hospital like mine, there is a committee run by nurses responsible for keeping the policy and procedures we use up to date with the latest research. A few years ago we completely overhauled our skin care policies and procedures. Any nurse is welcome to join the practice committee.

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · Jan 23, 2017

It's important to note that the NANDA and nursing diagnoses are applicable almost exclusively to nursing curriculum. If you're interesting in making an impact on nursing practice, your best options, like mentioned above, are to become involved in your local chapter of the American Nurses Association or, better yet, your chosen sub-specialty association.

AliNajaCat · Jan 23, 2017

It's important to note that the NANDA and nursing diagnoses are applicable almost exclusively to nursing curriculum. .

Not true. As a testifying expert nurse I use nursing diagnosis all the time to support my opinions. The Federal Rules of Evidence tell us all who can be an expert:

Rule 702. Testimony by Experts

If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.

That, my friends, is NANDA-I. Every nurse who testifies as an expert at deposition or at trial (and there are a lot of us) gets judged by that rule. Meet it or be impeached.

Anybody can be a NANDA-I member. You can volunteer for committees, vote on changes to nursing diagnoses (why do you think "energy field" went away?) and make a difference.

Just because you don't know anything about NANDA-I other than it's "applicable almost exclusively to nursing curriculum" doesn't make it true.

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · Jan 23, 2017

Not true. As a testifying expert nurse I use nursing diagnosis all the time to support my opinions. The Federal Rules of Evidence tell us all who can be an expert:
Rule 702. Testimony by Experts
If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.
That, my friends, is NANDA-I. Every nurse who testifies as an expert at deposition or at trial (and there are a lot of us) gets judged by that rule. Meet it or be impeached.
Anybody can be a NANDA-I member. You can volunteer for committees, vote on changes to nursing diagnoses (why do you think "energy field" went away?) and make a difference.
Just because you don't know anything about NANDA-I other than it's "applicable almost exclusively to nursing curriculum" doesn't make it true.

I'd be interested in hearing other ways in which nursing diagnoses are used in practice because I- and this experience has been echoed by every other clinical nurse I have spoken to on the subject, including on this forum- have never heard of any nurse actually using nursing diagnoses in practice.

AliNajaCat · Jan 24, 2017

OK, let's think about this here.

What do you (and those other people you cite) think nursing diagnosis is? Do you think it's the long-format thing we have students do to teach them how to think like nurses? if that's how you feel about it, perhaps you're still driving your car as if Mr. Davies from Driver's Ed is sitting next to you. Or maybe you think that all those years in medical school learning to make medical diagnoses means that your PCP has to write down the entire train of thought that brings him/her to the conclusion that you're anemic due to renal failure. No, s/he doesn't have to do that, and once you learn how to think like a nurse, you don't necessarily have to write down what you did with your every data point either.

Nursing diagnosis is nothing more (and nothing less) than thinking like a nurse. It's how we know what and why we do (as opposed to the about half of the time we implement the medical plan of care). We teach students the long form because they don't know a goddam thing, and making them, compelling them to justify their assessments and conclusions by finding them in a scientifically-validated resource teaches them to look for data and learn how it fits together.

You're in PICU, and I've never worked in PICU so I can't give you a great PICU example. But perhaps you can. Ever looked at a sick kid and known what you have to do first without anybody telling you? You made some nursing diagnoses there, for sure.

Ever talked to a parent and realized she has no fricking clue what the doc has explained to her about her child's medical diagnosis, and realized she'll go home with the kid and it will all happen again? How did you know that? Did the nursing fairy whisper it in your ear, having gotten your address from the dean when you graduated? No, you realized that she's being really inappropriate about this, has some misconceptions, and maybe she's not really interested in learning about it; then you set out figuring out how to fix that so the child will benefit. You just did a differential nursing diagnosis and figured out why it is what it is, so now you can figure out what to do about it. This isn't something a physician is going to do. It's on nursing.

OK, so now you're saying, "Well, D'UH!" Well, d'uh, indeed. If you're never doing anything like that, then you're not taking responsibility for thinking like a nurse, and you're not using the gifts that nursing diagnosis gave you. So yes, you are using nursing diagnosis every damn day. You just don't have to express it in the same way we have to when we beat it into students. Or attorneys. You just have to do it.

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Jul 28, 2017

Student membership for undergrads is possible for $50.00 fee to verify undergrad status:

Info:

â€¢Student Membership: Open to matriculating undergraduate students.

SouthpawRN · Jul 28, 2017

Why does NANDA insist on calling them Nursing Diagnoses? I asked professors and several nurses and none have ever told a HCP "well doc, my nursing diagnosis is __________" From day one, anyone in the medical profession is taught that only Health Care Practitioners/Providers diagnose. Unless you are an NP, you don't diagnose. I am pretty sure you will get the crazy look if you ever make that comment to a physician.

This also seems troublesome in court. So Nurse XYZ, you diagnosed the patient yet you are not a health care practitioner and diagnosing patients is not within your scope of practice??? Also NANDA gives suggested examples of interventions, no where does it appear to mandate that those must be done or that you cannot do an intervention that is not listed.

There is no mention of NANDA specifically in my state's Nursing Practice Act, the closest is this one statement under RN scope of practice, but it never references NANDA as the source or standard.

NAC 632.212 (a)â€‚The diagnosis and treatment of human responses to actual or potential health problems;

Why not nursing consideration, concerns, interventions, actions or priorities?

akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P · Jul 28, 2017

Why does NANDA insist on calling them Nursing Diagnoses? I asked professors and several nurses and none have ever told a HCP "well doc, my nursing diagnosis is __________" From day one, anyone in the medical profession is taught that only Health Care Practitioners/Providers diagnose. Unless you are an NP, you don't diagnose. I am pretty sure you will get the crazy look if you ever make that comment to a physician.
This also seems troublesome in court. So Nurse XYZ, you diagnosed the patient yet you are not a health care practitioner and diagnosing patients is not within your scope of practice??? Also NANDA gives suggested examples of interventions, no where does it appear to mandate that those must be done or that you cannot do an intervention that is not listed.
There is no mention of NANDA specifically in my state's Nursing Practice Act, the closest is this one statement under RN scope of practice, but it never references NANDA as the source or standard.
NAC 632.212 (a)â€‚The diagnosis and treatment of human responses to actual or potential health problems;
Why not nursing consideration, concerns, interventions, actions or priorities?

Sure, if you talked to a HCP that way you'd likely get looked at strangely though if your nursing Dx was correct, you wouldn't be wrong to do so. On one point you are correct... we don't do medical diagnosis. Nursing diagnoses deal with different components of patient care than Medicine does.

Here's a quick example: You have a patient that's diagnosed with schizophrenia. When you approach the patient, you see him not making eye contact. You see him keeping his distance from the food tray you brought in earlier. You see this and more... leading you to the Nursing Dx of Ineffective coping. Because of all the time you spent doing NANDAs in school, you know to approach the patient in a friendly, open, and consistent manner, you know you need to build trust with this patient so he'll know you're not going to put poison in his food, so he'll trust that you're part of reality.

Medicine can do many things but you won't find (nor will you need) a physician's order to implement the things you'd do for him. You could write the Nursing Dx in the patient's chart and it's completely valid. You can (usually) get certain service referrals for the patient independently of the physician because you know the patient needs a visit from a social worker, even if only to provide him with community resources that SW has. You note that the patient is uncomfortable because he's feeling cold. His temp is still 37C so clearly the patient's OK, right? No... you instead go get a warm blanket and note the patient suddenly appears less stressed. You didn't need an order for the warm blanket...

Just because you don't have MD, DO, PA, or NP credentials, it doesn't mean you don't diagnose because you truly and actually do. It's just that your diagnoses aren't medical diagnoses. It would also be as inappropriate for the MD or PA to write nursing diagnoses as it would be for you to write medical diagnoses, and for the same reasons.

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · Jul 30, 2017

I've been on allnurses for more than twenty years, and this is the FIRST time anyone has ever said they want to get involved with NANDA. We've had people wondering how they do what they do, but no one has ever wanted to infiltrate the place.

Wow. Mind blown.